With more than one million page views and more than 4,000 items, this blog provides news and commentary on public policy, business and economic issues related to the $3 billion California stem cell agency, officially known as the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine(CIRM). David Jensen, a retired California newsman, has published this blog since January 2005. His email address is djensen@californiastemcellreport.com.

Monday, October 18, 2010

Directors of the California stem cell agency will give away more than $80 million this week and wrestle with the question of what to do with their remaining $1.6 billion and how fast to spend it.

The $1.6 billion is a new figure for the public. Previously it was assumed the agency had $2 billion left, having committed $1 billion in awards. However, $2 billion figure did not include operational expenses, such as interest, legal costs and $180 million for administration through 2016.

The CIRM board is not likely to make a final decision on its strategic spending plan at the meeting Wednesday and Thursday in Los Angeles and at UCLA. Directors will have more information to work with in December when they consider the report of CIRM's external review panel, which conducted three days of hearings last week. The public was barred from most of those proceedings, and there are few clues concerning the direction of the blue-ribbon panel's recommendations.

Also before the board are applications for $80 million for early translational research. Three applicants whose proposals were rejected by reviewers have filed petitions seeking to reverse the decisions. They are Sophie Deng of the Jules Stein Eye Institute at UCLA, Leif Havton, also of UCLA and Frederick Meyers and Kit Lam of UC Davis. (You can find their appeals by clicking on their names.)

The appeal process itself, which has troubled the board for several years, may also be modified this week. A proposal that would formalize a process for sending grants back to reviewers for additional examination is on the table. The staff information on the plan said,

“When a material dispute of fact exists and the Board is unable to resolve the issue at the meeting at which the application is considered, the Board may conditionally deny funding for the application, subject to a limited analysis of the factual issue or issues identified by the Board. The option for additional analysis is not a reconsideration of the application as a whole, but is limited to consideration of the issue or issues identified by the Board. This option should be reserved only for those circumstances in which the Board is unable to reach a decision at meeting at which the application is presented because of the factual dispute or question. Programmatic issues, such as whether the agency’s portfolio is well-balanced among diseases, should not be a justification for additional analysis, nor should clear errors in the review of an application that have been identified by staff and presented to the Board during the meeting at which the application is considered.”

Also before the board is CIRM's second recruiting grant to a scientist, as yet unidentified. It would provide $4.9 million to the “mid-career neuroscientist” in addition to incentives provided by the recruiting institution. The reviewer summary said,

“Reviewers characterized the PI’s research vision and plans as truly innovative, novel, ambitious, and important. The research focus on devastating and currently incurable blinding diseases was viewed as highly significant, with a potential to revolutionize the field. Reviewers were confident that the PI’s research would contribute to both the critical basic science and preclinical advances that will underlie novel therapies.”

Missing from the proposed changes is one dealing with automatic forgiveness of loans to businesses under specified conditions. It appears to be connected to an application from iPierian, Inc., in the early translational round. However, the changes would apply to all loans to businesses and remove financial ambiguity that could be a stumbling block for some enterprises.

The changes came before the Finance Subcommittee last week, but some board members raised questions about them. Plus the panel did not have a quorum and could not legally act. The Finance Subcommittee has scheduled a meeting for Oct. 26 to consider the proposal again. It would then go to a special teleconference meeting in the board, if necessary.

CIRM has not provided a link to the loan forgiveness changes in the Oct. 26 agenda, but they can be found in a document here.

The public will be able to participate in the CIRM board meeting this week at teleconference locations in Washington, D.C., and Pleasanton in Northern California. The meeting can be heard on the Internet as well, but that audiocast does not permit participation.

About Me

The California Stem Cell Report is the only nongovernmental website devoted solely to the $3 billion California stem cell agency. The report is published by David Jensen, who worked for 22 years for The Sacramento Bee in a variety of editing positions, including executive business editor and special projects editor. He was the primary editor on the 1992 Pulitzer Prize-winning series, "The Monkey Wars" by Deborah Blum, which dealt with opposition to research on primates. Jensen served as a press aide in the 1974 campaign and first administration of Gov. Jerry Brown. (Time served: two years and one week.) He writes from his sailboat on the west coast of Mexico with occasional visits to land. Jensen began writing about the stem cell agency in 2005, noting that it is an unprecedented effort that uniquely combines big science, big business, big academia, big politics, religion, ethics and morality as well as life and death. The California Stem Cell Report has been identified as one of the best stem cell sites on the Internet. Its readership includes the media (both mainstream and science), a wide range of academic/research institutions globally, the NIH and California policy makers.